 All of these people had their lives ruined, either by being falsely accused or being treated with severe prejudice, and some of them were brutally murdered. We've done it for centuries, millennia even. The entirety of human history is filled with stories of people who faced public ostracism, imprisonment, and violence at the hands of angry mobs fueled by misinformation. And we're still doing it today. In our recent episode on The Matrix, I talked about the way that biased and unreliable media, restrictive social networks, and authoritarian governments distort people's understanding of the world. If most of what you believe about an individual, a group, or any other aspect of the world is false, your judgments and decisions are going to be impaired. And in many cases, that can lead to a lot of harm being done to innocent people. Today on this series, we're going to take a serious look at the most effective ways to solve this problem. And I figured that the best way to explain this without bumming everybody out would be to talk about it in the context of one of my favorite horror comedies, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. If you'll give me about 10 minutes of your time, I promise you'll see how all these things connect. So join me and settle in for this short edition of Out of Frame. Before I get started, note that there will be a few spoilers for the movie, but don't worry, nothing I'm going to say will ruin it for you. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a hilarious film about a couple of good buddies trying to do the right thing. These self-proclaimed hillbillies, played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, are just heading out to fix their newly acquired fishing cabin in West Virginia. When they run into a group of very clean, very preppy college kids who are on their way to a camping trip in the same area. Dale isn't great with the ladies, but he attempts to strike up a conversation with one of the girls anyway. It doesn't go well. Based almost entirely on their appearance, accents, and other obvious markers of social status, the college kids seem to think that Tucker and Dale are creepy, rapacious, possibly murderous freak shows. Later that night, their ringleader Chad reinforces that prejudice by telling spooky stories about another group of college kids just like them that got brutally massacred by Evil Hillbillies 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Tucker and Dale are just going about their business, trying to fix up the cabin and get out on the water to relax after a hard day's work. But when they end up saving Allison, the girl Dale was attracted to from drowning, her friends immediately rushed to judgment and assumed that the creepy rednecks kidnapped her. So they gear up to storm the cabin and rescue Allison instead of, say, calling the police or simply knocking on the door. They can't. Not because Tucker and Dale are bad guys. They're both sweethearts. But because the college crew's thoughtless prejudice makes them reckless and a danger to themselves and each other. As their misguided and incompetent efforts to rescue Allison lead to a hysterical number of improbable but definitely accidental deaths, Chad is revealed to be the very thing he claimed Tucker and Dale were. A homicidal maniac. There might be a lesson in here about psychological projection and gaslighting, but this kind of torch and pitchfork mob mentality is exactly why upholding the presumption of innocence and the right to due process is important. I've talked about due process on this show before, so it's been incredibly sad and frustrating that some people have come out so strongly against it, particularly during the high-profile events and criminal trials we've seen over the last few years. It seems that a whole lot of folks only support legitimate standards of justice, charity, and compassion for people accused of any sort of wrongdoing, including simply wrongthink if those people are aligned with their politics. The thing is, we've known for centuries that this is a terrible way to operate. In fact, the justice system in America was explicitly designed with due process standards at its core to protect the accused from the possible error or malice of his or her accusers. Principles like the presumption of innocence, the right to face accusers in an open forum, where the alleged crimes are specifically stated, impartial review of the evidence, and the assurance that everyone gets a fair hearing before losing their life, liberty, or property are the very essence of true justice. Whether you're in a courtroom or not, skipping over all that because you don't like the accused doesn't make you a justice warrior. It makes you a supporter of injustice. It's honestly shocking to see people dismiss this stuff as unimportant. Yes, that pesky Bill of Rights protected Derek Chauvin, no matter what you might think of him. That same Bill of Rights protected A.J. Coffey, who was ultimately found not guilty of murder for defending himself against what turned out to be a SWAT raid. Legal protections for those accused of a crime have to be for everybody. We can't pick and choose who gets to have an impartial trial and who doesn't, and we certainly shouldn't be making those decisions based on who it's fashionable to hate today. We need a system that limits the number of innocent people being stripped of their liberty and livelihoods as a result of other people's biases, bad information, and ill intent. That means, in or outside of the legal system, we should all be concerned when mobs rush to judgment. In Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, the college kids decided it was okay to hate the hillbillies. Chad grew up being told that people who looked and sounded like Tucker and Dale did terrible things to his family, and one of them had, but he used his prejudice as an excuse for his own bad actions. Chad's single-minded insistence that because one hillbilly was evil, they all are and should be punished ultimately leads to a bunch of people dying in horrible ways. At the same time, even though Allison was understandably scared and confused when she woke up in a strange place with the weird guys from the gas station, she didn't let her prejudices overwhelm her humanity. Separated from her friends and the peer pressure and misinformation that she was surrounded by, Allison actually gives Dale a chance to explain himself, and as socially awkward as he is, the two manage to bond and form a new friendship. The college crew all misunderstood what happened to Allison, and they never bothered to find out the truth. When they did finally talk to Allison, they dismissed her explanations as Stockholm Syndrome, and carry on with their insane plan anyway. A similar reaction happened regarding the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse last month. Tons of people were so desperate to believe the misinformation they were told about what happened in Kenosha that even after the trial, which was publicly live-streamed and debunked many of the things people had been saying on the news and on social media, a lot of those folks insisted on clinging to the lies they'd been fed. When the not guilty verdict came in, some of them even wondered if Rittenhouse could be charged and tried again, in complete defiance of constitutional protections against double jeopardy. Once a mob rushes to judgment, the beliefs and ideas that got them riled up are extremely difficult to dispel. But so often, the alleged facts and assumptions that ignite some initial outrage turn out to be wrong. Rittenhouse, Sandman, Jesse Smollett, Pizza Gate, and QAnon, the Russia collusion narrative, and border patrol whipping refugees from horseback are some obvious recent examples. But it's just always the case that a lot of the information that gets frantically reported turns out to be false. The horrific shooting at the Pulse nightclub in 2016 wasn't an anti-gay hate crime. There's also no evidence that the 2021 shootings at Atlanta Massage Parlers were motivated by anti-Asian hate, and yet that sparked weeks of media coverage. We've seen high-profile rape accusations against the Duke Lacrosse team, Paul Nungeser, Brett Kavanaugh, Anthony Broadwater, and others that turned out to be false. And I'm sure you've seen, and maybe even believe, credulous reporting of bad statistics about the dangers faced by young women in America that were deliberately created to mislead. And while I'm skewering sacred cows, it's indisputable that voter fraud exists, but there isn't much good evidence it affected the outcome of the 2020 election. But it's also nonsense to call what happened on January 6th an insurrection or a threat to democracy, and a lot of what the media told people about that was completely wrong. No matter who you are, when you rush to judgment you're going to make mistakes, and those mistakes might have serious consequences. Yes, sometimes upholding due process will benefit people who turn out to be guilty, and too often these principles are applied incorrectly or inconsistently. We should all be extremely aware that our system isn't perfect, and has historically been used in deeply unfair ways. But establishing methods to check mob outrage is the key to genuine justice, so the solution to inequities in the system must be about doing better, not doing away with those kinds of protections. Justice for those who've been wronged cannot come from injustice to those who are not. These ideas are for everybody, regardless of how you think they look or how guilty you think they are beforehand. Even the people you don't like, even the people you disagree with. So as we close out the year, give your fellow human beings the same consideration that you would want for yourself. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this episode of Out of Frame. Just so you know, we're not going to be doing a new episode at the beginning of January, so this is the last one we're going to do for a few weeks. But I hope you've enjoyed it, and tell all your friends about the show. For those looking to participate in ripping conversation about Out of Frame, movies, TV, politics, philosophy, and all kinds of other things, I'd encourage you all to join our Discord server. And if you're a fan of the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon or Subscribestar. It'll give you access to special bonus content, swag, a private channel on Discord, and more. And it will help us keep making Out of Frame every month. Either way, please don't forget to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and ring that bell icon, join our email list, and follow us on all the social media so you never miss an episode. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next year.